21 March 19: International Colour Day

Today it’s a double whammy: its International Colour Day AND the Hindu festival of Holi.

As such I’ve been time-travelling back to the six months i spent in India when I was 18. I remember going to a market in Tamil Nadu in southern India and seeing pile upon pile of vibrantly coloured packets.

I discovered that they were for Holi, the Festival of Colours, and were destined to be chucked around with joyful, gleeful abandon. I learnt how each of the colours symbolises something. Red is for matrimony, fertility, love and beauty; yellow is for happiness and meditation; blue is the colour of the god Krishna; pink stands for compassion and caring; purple means mystery and magic; and green denotes nature and new beginnings.

As I always say, colour matters – a lot. It matters when it comes to how we act, how we feel, how we celebrate and so much more. In my world, every day is a day for colour but, like a birthday, a day for us all to reflect on its importance in our lives can only be a good thing.

Happy birthday, Colour.

Martha, The Colour File x

All 📷 by me

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